Red Cross wants video game developers to add punishments for war crimes in their titles as war games continue to become more and more realistic.

The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) wants realistic war games to imitate the real thing by employing virtual consequences for war crimes like torture during interrogation, attacks on medical units, and deliberate attacks on civilians.

"It is very difficult to make the difference between real footage and the footage you can get from video games, so we are arguing that we have to get even closer to reality, and we also have to include the rules of the law on conflict," said François Sénéchaud, head of the ICRC's Division for the Integration and Promotion of the Law.

The ICRC made it clear that it has taken no stance on violence in video games, and that its suggestion only targets games that portray real-world war. It's not worried about fantasy games.

The ICRC also said that it isn't against the portrayal of war crimes, but that it just wants punishment included when these acts are committed.

Bohemia Interactive, which is makes the Arma series of realistic military games, has already agreed to include punishments for war crimes in its games.

The decision was to hold US troops accountable under the UCMJ, rather than in an international court where the US does not necessarily have the ability to control the laws crafted and the rules governing combat. Furthermore, evidence ruled admissable or inadmissable can be swayed against US favor in such international courts.

The UCMJ still holds troops accountable for violating the Geneva conventions, ROE, LOAC, etc. I submit that it is a myopic fallacy to conclude that US troops aren't accountable for their actions on the battlefield.

P.S.Although the news media capitalizes voraciously on each rare instance of a US servicemember violating LOAC, it seems to altogether neglect the well-documented reports of how the enemy willfully violates LOAC on a perpetual basis (human shields, hiding among civilians, etc). If nothing else, not being uniformed combatants means that they are willingly submitting the civilian population to undue risk of collateral damage--as it becomes impossible to distinguish them apart.